Never, would I ever go so far as to say I favor one group over another. Never would I do that. I would tell you that the Second Tongue Fictionaut Group includes members whose first languages are but are not limited to Italian, Spanish, German, Chinese, Greek, Dutch, French and Malaysian. Here is what Dorothee had to say in brief (I decided that next week, if she’ll have me, perhaps we can do a dialogue about translated literature.) Meantime, here’s this: THE CULTURED GROUP WHICH IS BETTER THAN THE REST OF US CHUMPS ONLY THINKING IN ONE OR TWO LANGUAGES.

Kidding!
Love,
Nicolle

From Dorothee Lang: I’m German, and English is my second language, so I was amazed when i met 2 other Fictionauts with a bilingual background: Finnegan Flawnt and Nora Nadjarian. Together, we started the “Second Tongue Group” in Fictionaut, and it was surprising to see how many other Fictionauts are bilingual Second Tongue is the group for the bi- and multilingual Fictionaut, and for native English speakers who live and write abroad or who write in another language than English.

The idea for the ‘Second Tongue’ group sparked in ‘The Hidden Workshop‘, through a half sentence Finnegan had included in a thread about editing: “…and English isn’t even my first language, folks.”  I read this, was stunned, and messaged back, to tell him that English isn’t my first language either. From there, it didn’t take long to come up with the idea to start a bilingual group. The group has 27 members now, and beyond others, includes Fictionauts whose first language is Italian, Spanish, German, Chinese, Greek, Dutch, French, and Malaysian…

Dorothee also heads up the wonderful BluePrint Review, which brings us literature from a self-proclaimed “International Approach”:

The new issue of Blueprintreview is in the going-live phase right now– it’s the first issue that goes live in sequences, as the theme is (dis)comfort, and having all the discomfort up in one go might be have been a bit overwhelming.

The issue also includes a story that came directly from the Fictionaut “recommended reads” page: “Coffee” by Karen Swartz. There also is a story from another Fictionaut up: “Different” from Susan Gibb. Susan Gibb and I met through Fictionaut, I admire her hypertext skills. Parallel to finalizing the blueprintreview “(dis)comfort” issue, the new issue of blueprintreview is now going into the submission phase. The theme will be: “micro cosmos”, it’s an issue dedicated to flash fiction (short and very short stories), and to ‘flash’ photography (crops, close-ups, blurred photos.) Here’s the call for submissions.

As always, I asked her to plug herself here:

My first short story collection in transit has just launched, it includes short stories from different places of the world.  in transit is published under the blueprintpress label, this is a bit of a longer story, and also marks the revivial of blueprintpress. The next blueprintpress project will be connected to the micro cosmos issue – “micro novels” Here are the links to my webpage and my blog.

Nicolle Elizabeth checks in with Fictionaut Groups every Friday.

Kirk Farber is the author of the debut novel Postcards from a Dead Girl (Harper Perennial 2010). Postcards is a March 2010 “Indie Next” selection, and was previously a semi-finalist in the first Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest. Kirk’s short fiction appears in Wisconsin People & Ideas and Hobart literary journal. He recently contributed an essay about living in Wisconsin to The Great Lakes Reader (Delphinium Books, 2009).

Q (Meg Pokrass): What story or book do you feel closest to?

I’ve always been drawn to books that are a bit dark. I loved Tim O’ Brien’s In the Lake of the Woods and Jeffrey Eugenides’ The Virgin Suicides. I also feel closest to books that handle sad/dark themes with humor, so I enjoyed Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club and Lullaby, and I’m a big fan of almost anything by Kurt Vonnegut or Douglas Coupland.

Do you have a mentor?

I don’t have an individual mentor, but I did have a mentoring group while writing Postcards from a Dead Girl. I was a member of Redbird Studio when I lived in Milwaukee, and their bi-weekly round tables provided me with regular feedback, encouragement, and networking opportunities. All of these things helped me immensely. Every other week I’d bring a scene in, read it out loud, and immediately get ten or twelve opinions and some written criticism. I would also critique others’ manuscripts, which helped me become a sharper reader. Now that I live in Colorado, I’m part of Pikes Peak Writers, which is a similar kind of group that offers classes, social events, and a huge conference annually. These are nice things to have after spending so much time alone writing.

How do you stay creative? What are your tricks to get “unstuck?”

My best trick to get “unstuck” is to tell myself that I’m only going to write one or two sentences for the day. It will just be a slow day, I tell myself, but at least write one paragraph, man. I usually end up writing much more then. But if I declare that it’s going to be a 10-page day because I have the whole day to write, I will get zilch.

What are your favorite websites?

Well, Fictionaut is pretty dang cool. I think it’s a great format.  Other sites I’ve enjoyed are Hobart (who published my first short story, Forever Girl) and Monkeybicycle is fun.  I also like to check in on Bookslut, as well as The Nervous Breakdown.  But mostly I surf news web sites and spend too much time on Facebook.

What are you working on now?

I’m working on another novel. This one has multiple viewpoints, which is different than Postcards from a Dead Girl. It’s been fun to hop around in other characters heads so far, instead of writing in just one voice.  We’ll see. I’m telling myself it will only be 10 pages long in hopes that I’ll write 300.

How did Postcards from a Dead Girl come about? How did this novel get born?

The novel was inspired by the song “Letters from the Dead” by a band formerly called The Bees, now known as The Silver Seas. The lyrics are about a guy who is contemplating some postcards from a dead relationship, and that got my “what if” question going. I thought: what if someone were actually having postcards sent to them from someone who they weren’t sure was alive or dead? How would that play out? And I wrote the first scenes very quickly.

But then I spent two more years finishing the first draft, and another year revising it. I eventually met my agent, Sandra Bond, at a writer’s group event, and after sending her my query, she asked for the full manuscript, but I didn’t hear from her for four months. When I finally followed up, she actually thought she had read it and passed, when in fact she hadn’t read it at all. Luckily, she read it and loved it.

Sandra ended up sending it to Carl Lennertz at HarperCollins first, and he started faxing edits back that same day. Working with Carl was great because besides being wicked smart and a generous guy, he is also an author and understands how tough the editing process can be, so even though it was intense he made it fun.

Can you share insight into creating characters that feel authentic?

I think characters are most authentic or alive when they are flawed, and struggle a lot to overcome their defects. I would rather read about someone who is imperfect than someone who has got it all together. Most people don’t have it all together. In Postcards from a Dead Girl, Sid is pretty screwed up, but he’s also trying to improve his life, albeit in a roundabout way, and I think that makes him more relatable.

The Fictionaut Five is our ongoing series of interviews with Fictionaut authors. Every Wednesday, Meg Pokrass asks a writer five (or more) questions. Meg is an editor at Smokelong Quarterly, and her stories and poems have been published widely. She blogs at http://megpokrass.com.

As usual, the recent issue of Cave Wall has some wonderful poems in it, such as Jennifer Atkinson’s “A Leaf from the Book of Cities.” You can read Atkinson’s poem in its entirety on Luna Park (“The city, grateful for distraction, / applauds, laughs, oohs and ahs”).

Below are a few words from Atkinson on Klee’s influence and what circuses you should stay away from:

Paul Klee, painter and teacher of painting, wrote that “Art does not reproduce what is visible, but makes things visible.” I took his advice to heart. In the painting that gives this poem its name, there is no visible circus or tent or torn handbills, but there is a simple circle sun at the top and a stylized city of rickety, ready-to-fall buildings below. If the circus does come to Klee’s cunieform-built city, I wouldn’t advise attending.

Over at Matchbook, LP assistant editor (and Fictionaut blogger) Marcelle Heath has a new story up: “Aunt Ginny’s Lunar Bash, Los Alamos, 1974.” About the story Heath claims, “I wanted to allude to the monsters the adults cannot see, but that the children know all too well.” Here’s the story’s childlike beginning:

We were playing war games in the conservatory the night of the eclipse. Kitsie Countryman thought the world was going to melt into a gob of goo; Percival Bishop argued for an alien takeover…

On a maudlin note, Isotope seems to have finally stopped publishing. Even after all the conversation last year about university lit mags struggling in the recession, it still seems a shock to see a publisher go under. But maybe it helps to recall that this is not unusual for literary-minded magazines, which have an average lifespan of four years. It seems also important—certainly for the editors at Isotope—to remember that landmark magazines as Grand Street, Kayak, Big Table, and countless others had the same fate. And many more will. (But that won’t stop lit mag publishers from trying—such as with the “Resubscribe or Else!” insert Kayak editor George Hitchcock placed in an issue, pictured above.)

In somewhat similar news, Utne Reader has begun The Dead Magazine Club, in an effort to recognize such bygone mags. So far there are only a couple of magazines on the site—any ex-magazine publishers out there?

On the flip side, I’d recommend Premiere Issues, a website whose name says it all. Not many first issues of lit mags up on the site, but you can find an issue of Broken Wrist Project there, in which film director John Hughes published some flash fiction under a pseudonym. (His son edited the magazine.)

And many magazines continue to thrive, such as Abe’s Penny, which turns one year old next month.

The New Left Review turns 50.

And Fiddlehead turns 65 (pictured in magazine rack above).

And there are new magazines. Jospeh Brodsky´s literary executor, Ann Kjellberg, has launched the new poetry magazine Little Star. Though I have not yet seen a copy, the first issue sports such names as Seamus Heaney, Paul Muldoon, Derek Walcott, Mary Jo Salter, Robert Wrigley, Lydia Davis, and Tim Parks, and you can read a bit of a manifesto from Padgett Powell on the website.

In the new issue of possibly the world’s most well-established lit mag, Poetry, Durs Grünbein asks: Why Live Without Writing? Or, more specifically: “Why do you write when no one can tell me what the point is?” Why indeed.

Also included in the issue are new poems from /nor editor J. Allyn Rosser, “Impromptu” and “Night Drive” excerpted below:

I accelerate gamely,
wondering what makes me want to leave
each person, place and thing I learn to love.

Finally Lucille Clifton—one-time poet laureate of Maryland, National Book Award Winner, and 2007 Ruth Lily Prize winner—dies at 73.

Every Tuesday, Travis Kurowski presents Luna Digest, a selection of news from the world of literary magazines. Travis is the editor of Luna Park, a magazine founded on the idea that journals are as deserving of critical attention as other artistic works.

On Dylan Nice‘s “The Way it Smelled”
by Rachel Yoder

In “The Way It Smelled” by Dylan Nice, Buster, a CVS clerk, loses his virginity to Eleanor, a sour-smelling girl with one pink eye. A simple enough premise, but Dylan makes the story idiosyncratic, funny, sweet, innocent, and, above all, awkward to the point of cringe. “The Way It Smelled” also serves as proof that a piece can be snortably funny while at the same time artful and crafted, with excellent sentences. Here are the opening lines: “The corduroy of his trousers stretched awkwardly. Eleanor was pressing herself to his body, and she was sweating through her own clothes and into his some. He felt at the fabric of her Pooh Bear T-shirt and looked into her one pink eye.” Great, right?

In addition to loving this story for it’s truly exceptional sentences (my favorite, “Slowly, as they exchanged heat through their mouths, he began to work her T-Shirt farther up her stomach until it bunched uncomfortably at her bra.”) I also adore the characters who are both odd and ordinary, the details that are particular and strange, and the world which is-as it should be for adolescents getting it on for the first time-almost unbearably uncomfortable. I almost want to look away, but I don’t and instead giggle into my palm as Eleanor farts during the make-out session and then again, later, after the condom incident. By the end the whole episode, the characters have somehow retained their innocence and the story its sweetness, even as Buster utters his final words to Eleanor: “Thank you so much for letting me do this to you.”

On Kathy Fish‘s “Swicks Rule!”
by Ravi Mangla

The first Kathy Fish story I read was in Juked, two-ish years ago, about a naked sleepwalker with a soft spot for the music of Stevie Wonder. I’ve been a major fan of her work ever since. “Swicks Rule!” is one of my very favorite Kathy Fish stories. Reading this piece is like watching a master plate spinner. Every few lines a new character is introduced and the tension builds. How Kathy Fish manages to balance all those wacky characters while nurturing an inner story that’s so honest and intimate is beyond me. A flash like this isn’t supposed to work. But that’s Kathy Fish for you.

On Myfanwy Collins‘ “The Daughters”
by Katrina Denza

Myfanwy Collins is a gifted, poetic writer and I could talk about any one of her pieces with boundless admiration. I’ll focus on her “The Daughters” though, for this is a great example of her soulful generosity and her attention to detail. I love the way Myfanwy came at this story, featuring the daughters as a collective, as it gives the reader a sense of relief, a sense they might be okay in spite of everything because they are like one being and stronger for it. Together they can stand against thoughtless, if unintended, neglect, and against their father’s apt and powerful warning: “I could slip and hurt you.” And together they can bear the humiliation brought down upon them by their unthinking parents.

The details Myfanwy has chosen to show the girls’ life, the scab on the mustard jar, the mother not teaching them to wipe correctly or to brush their teeth, the father jabbing their sensitive ears with “unraveled paper clips” makes the piece a stand out. There’s something so…honest and real about them. They are the things that no one talks about in polite conversation, but they are the truth of lives, of these lives here. That is one of Myfanwy’s greatest gifts as a writer, her willingness to go places most will not, and then to put it all together so beautifully on top of that, every word, every sentence, a not-to-be-missed jewel.

Fictionaut Faves, a series in which Fictionaut members recommend stories on the site, is edited by Marcelle Heath, a fiction writer, freelance editor, and assistant editor for Luna Park. She lives in Portland, Oregon.

I was really interested in talking to Susan Gibb about HyperText. As a retired 90’s mush/mu/mud (text-based messageboard) completely small-time h4x0r (hacker), I was looking forward to the walk down memory lane. In the 1990’s, text-based black screen green font message boards were all the rage. A person could sign up (with an invite) to a forum, and write a story. The story would be action and narrative based, character driven, and a matter of survival. If you were signing off the for evening, you would write “go to sleep” and then your character would go to sleep. If it was in a bed, you would write “go to sleep in bed” if the sheets were white, you would write, “go to sleep in white bed” and so-forth. As a 12 year old fiction writer, this seemed like a good way to get practice with description and place, movement and blocking.

Then there were the embedded hidden messages. Within the board, often, there would be an invite to an event. Often times (and this is going to sound so, so cliched) there would be a hint toward a map-point. The map-point was the place you would go to IRL (in real life) to acquire your map (via giving 3 or so dollars and saying the code word embedded on the messageboard) toward where to go next. Where to go next was a rave, and if you showed the map at the door, you were in. Thus began my pre-punk early teen years of dating much, much older DJs and computer “1337” (Elite/LEET speakers).

When I think about HyperText from a New Media standpoint, I can’t help but nod toward the Infrarealists, the Flux Movement, old h4x0rz, new ways of communicating writing, and David Foster Wallace. In a story, if a word which can be clicked on is linked to another porthole of information, our conscious is re-directed to that footnote. The question then becomes is HyperText a means of distraction, or a means of elaborating on information? If as is the case in the interview with Susan below, amazon.com is linked not only as the word to be read but as an actual URL computer link, and we click on the link, do we actually end up thinking less? Instead of allowing our minds to envision and remember what amazon.com is, the information is at our fingertips, not only in definition, but in form, we are taken to amazon.com itself, and in doing so, one stop closer to what many 1337 would refer to as “Singularity” which is a movement of collective thought toward one thought, one way, one conclusion. Terrifying to me personally, as I’d rather you not know what I’m thinking. (It will be interesting to watch Fictionaut over the years to see: Will we one day all post a different story about the same fish? The same dream?)

I think about David Foster Wallace because I think that what he did with footnotes was a print early example of HyperText, I think in some ways, HyperText is footnoting, however, I also believe DFW and HT’ers to be onto something much, much, more complicated in the way of leading, directing, or even mis-directing the psyche. I believe HyperText to be “trippy, man” and so, I asked Susan about the Flux art movement as one example of a collective of artists asking themselves and their audience to think on a more Meta-planar-level. I think in HyperText, we see one more bridge in the gap in communication. Much like the telephone text message, for example. I have a friend who’s getting his PhD in this at USC right now, and he is going to read this and call me a n00b.

Q (Nicolle Elizabeth) What is HyperText both as a movement and a Fictionaut group?

A (Susan Gibb): Hypertext is very simply the interactive abilities granted a reader to travel a path through a narrative (and I’m just referring to hypertext here in its literary nature) by his own selection of following links. Is it a movement? Well no, and yet it does expand the borders of narrative by crossing them, allowing a seeming randomness and freedom to a work though the story and links in all its elements are carefully designed by the author/creator. In it’s simplest definition, hypertext is clicking on a highlighted word or phrase to bring you to another page on the web. It’s selecting your way through amazon.com to find that perfect purse, and complete the purchase by filling out forms before the final “Place Order” button is pressed.

The Hypertext Fiction group here at Fictionaut is basically for both writers who have used the medium and those who have expressed interest in the form. Hypertext reading brings a natural sort of resistance because it is presented differently than a linear formatted, straight read and the idea of the reader “writing” his own version of the story (a la Roland Barthes) by his selection of clicking on particular words to lead him forward is worrisome to those not as ambitious to work at reading. Or those who fear getting lost or lacking the confidence in making choices. I call it the “getting in the wrong line at the supermarket syndrome.”

Do any of the people involved with HyperText (the group) have previous programming, mixed media or new media experience?

Yes, Dorothee Lang, Steve Ersinghaus, Chris Klimas, Craig Snyder, Scott Garson, have all produced hypertext works and Finnegan Flawnt has been convinced to use the medium in future work. Mark Bernstein, chief engineer at Eastgate has designed the software which I use to produce hypertext story. Hypertext, by the way, would be considered only one form of new media; there are many others that overlap in audio, visual, and text that the term encompasses. My piece, Blueberries, recently published in the The New River Review employs visuals in the background images of many “pages,” and the movement of the narrative is emphasized by the colors of text, background, fading of image, etc. that become a part of the setting of tone. The logo of the group is in fact a “map” of the writing spaces or pages that make up the story, Blueberries, and show the various paths by which one can read the story.

You guys ever hear of Jenny Holzer’s “Protect Protect” exhibit?

I hadn’t, but in checking the web, I find her work immensely interesting. It would definitely come under the heading of New Media, including text, though it is not hypertextual. There is an interactive element to hypertext that is not inherently a part of new media art–whether it be visual or textual. Holzer’s exhibit also appears to be making a statement that is not necessarily a part of all textual new media. There are artists who use hypertext elements within installation works such as Dene Griger, who uses her body as the interactive element working within the piece. I’m currently planning a hypertext piece that introduces sound and more visual enhancements to the story. What influences me is the wide open opportunity when an artist can expand upon ideas by involving all senses of his audience. Installation art usually does involve some manner of interaction, as the viewer is often a part of the piece. This same concept is what moves hypertext story.

Do you feel the HyperText movement is a nod toward the Flux movement? If so, how?

Not really. I think that the only thing hypertext has in common with the Fluxus philosophy is that it can include other sensory enhancements and stimulations such as music, voice, and visuals whether stationary or static into its process. It is certainly not anti-art, as the Fluxus attitude may espouse, nor an example of simplicity, as hypertext and other new media methods can be quite complex in their arrangement. And, just as book-based literature, hypertext is not given towards a particular genre or humor. All new media will expand the art form however, and is wide open to experimentation, as was also the intent of the spirit of Fluxus artists.

How does Hypertext help communicate a story or detract from a story?

I think Scott Garson put it well in his artist notes on a piece recently published in Matchbook: “what’s exciting is that hypertext attempts to use technology as the basis for its existence, rather than an impediment or something to accept which devalues it because it isn’t printed.”

Now that we’re reading online via computers, e-readers, and phones, the medium of text literature is simply adjust itself to the methods. However, hypertext story takes advantage of the capabilities of online reading to move in many directions other than scroll or flip. For a writer, the ability to add momentum to a story via side trails than may go into more depth of background or character, to introduce to the curious or adventurous reader an alternate path that may lead him into a new world that may not be vital to story but surely offers a deeper look is an awesome implement. It is also an awesome responsibility. There is a certain amount of learning to write in the form so that readers aren’t left hanging off cliffs or walking (reading) in endless circles–unless that is his intent. Hypertext narrative can also offer many different endings to a story; parallels in time that change the outcome by choice–just as in real life. In truth, hypertext more closely resembles reality than linear text. I find it challenging and fun to write in hypertext form, but not all stories want the paths, and some stories just beg for it.

Add anything else you’d like here.

Even as I encourage others to try the hypertext form, I realize it’s out of comfort zone for many writers as well as readers. Last summer I took part in a group movement that included photography, painting, short stories, character sketches, poetry, and coding. For my part, I wrote a short hypertext story, and we did this every day for 100 days through the summer. It was a great project where the pieces were related and yet each took off in their own direction, the artists building from concepts of each other’s work. It was like a giant hypertext in action in itself, and my pieces grew in complexity and form as I learned with each new piece. Maude Nichols, put up here at Fictionaut and at the Hypertext Group is one of those pieces and it in particular is user friendly–employing a multiple choice for its linking structure. I knew that this particular work would overcome the quandary new readers find themselves in when given the choice of several links to follow by explaining exactly where the choice will lead. It’s a fun piece and I was glad to see such a warm reception to it here. Maybe I’ll put up another, slightly tougher one soon!
My websites: http://susangibb.net and http://susangibb.net/blog2

Nicolle Elizabeth checks in with Fictionaut Groups every Friday.

“Svoboda’s poems are as haunting as they are funny, as pleasurable as they are powerful,” wrote Publisher’s Weekly about Terese Svoboda’s Weapons Grade, published last year by U. of Arkansas Press. Her fifth book of poetry, it contains poems that appeared in the Times Literary Supplement, Paris Review, New Yorker, and Tin House. After an interview and a look at her writing space, we’re pleased to present Svoboda’s poem “Pink,” originally published in The New Yorker on October 30, 1989, on Fictionaut. Here is the author’s introduction:

I wrote this after my husband returned from a gig as assistant director working with Lindsay Anderson who directed a movie about the first rock and roll band to visit China–WHAM, in fact. Then I waited nearly six years to figure out what the last line was.

Line Breaks is a regular feature in which accomplished authors introduce and share their first published stories with the Fictionaut community. Line Breaks is edited by Gary Percesepe. You can read “Pink” on Fictionaut.

Jen Michalski‘s first collection of fiction, Close Encounters, is available from So New (2007) and her second is forthcoming from Dzanc (2013). She is the editor of the anthology City Sages: Baltimore (CityLit Press 2010) and the lit quarterly jmww.

Q (Meg Pokrass): What book are you closest to?

JD Salinger’s Nine Stories. It’s a collection that I read and find something new each time, even though I’ve been reading it since I was fourteen or so. Nine Stories made me want to be a short story writer rather than a novelist. I read it when I feel lost or unfocused. I’m continuously amazed by Salinger’s treatment of character and setting and dialogue. In the opening for “A Perfect Day for Bananafish,” the scene in which Muriel speaks to her mother on the phone is all dialogue and so natural and so revealing of her personality, of her relationship with Seymour, of their entire shared backstory without sounding cheap or expository. And I hate so much dialogue, usually, at the beginning of a story, or anywhere, because it usually is so artificial and expository. But Salinger does things with language that would sound or feel absolutely awful if anyone else did them. And characters, too. Like Teddy, or Franklin Graff, or Boo-Boo Glass.

Salinger keeps me traditional in a lot of ways. Sometimes I try more experimental things or shorter pieces but when I think about what has moved me the most, it’s Nine Stories, and I’,always trying to craft a story to Salinger’s point of perfection.

Do you have/have you had a mentor/mentors?

I’m not sure if there’s a single person I’d consider a mentor. Neither my bachelor’s or my master’s is for creative writing, so a lot of what I’ve learned is just from reading and being rejected. Oh, and I’m in a writing group, too, which helps. Aside from that, there are a couple of people who I show my work to pretty consistently and whose opinion I trust. I would be totally in the market for a mentor! Maybe I should take out an ad on Craigslist.

What methods to you use to get creatively “unstuck”?

I guess I’m lucky in that I don’t ever feel particularly uncreative or stuck. I don’t force it–I don’t sit down and write everyday or at a specific time because I know that it’ll just come out when it’s ready. I dream a lot and do a lot of my work in bed–awake or sleeping. Or like last weekend, when I had a half a day to write and I sat down to work on a story that had been kind of swimming around. Yet when my fingers hit the keys another story came out, one that I didn’t even know was there. The other one is still waiting to emerge, but it’ll fight its way out when its time.

I like to think we have a lot of writing teeth. Some are slow and painful or impacted, and you pay a lot of attention to those. But then you wake up the next morning and you’ve cut a completely different tooth that you didn’t know you had. And the trick is to let all the teeth fall out on their own. If you try and pull them, the gums retain the memory of that loss. And maybe it affects the next tooth growing out of that hole. I’d like to think I’ll always have teeth coming in, but who knows? I have teeth now, and that’s all I’m going to worry about.

What are your favorite web sites?

There are so many writers’ blogs, so many journals I try to read every day. I’ll tell you the non-writing sites I go to daily (actually, they’re really boring): Wikipedia, for everything; the NIH publication database, for my freelance copyediting work; Craigslist, to look at free stuff (I always have this idea I’m going to pick up a piano and learn to play it); Snopes, to debunk all the forwards I receive; and Slate, Salon, New York Times, and the Baltimore Sun for news and culture. I’m a boring Internet person. I never do YouTube or watch television on Hulu or anything. I’m like a 65-year-old woman who knows how to use e-mail. Pretty soon I’ll be writing in all caps.

What are you working on now?

I edited an anthology that I’m really excited about, City Sages: Baltimore (CityLit Press, 2010), that’s coming out in April. It’s a collection of authors, dead and alive, who’ve lived and written in Baltimore. Edgar Allan Poe, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Gertrude Stein have stories beside Anne Tyler, Alice McDermott, and Stephen Dixon, who share space with Madison Smartt Bell, Laura Lippman, Jessica Anya Blau, Geoff Becker, Michael Kimball, me. It’s the first anthology of its kind for Baltimore. It basically came about from my co-hosting of the 510 Reading Series with Michael Kimball. We’ve hosted so many great Baltimore authors that nobody knows about in our suburbs, down our streets. An anthology seemed only fitting to create awareness of our great literary tradition and the writers carrying it on.

I was also excited to find out that Dzanc is publishing my second collection, a novella/short stories, in 2013. I also just finished a novel and another novella and am trying to navigate the bigger world of agents and publishers, which is totally terrifying and like walking in the dark. Mostly, though, I started another novel that I’d like to finish the first draft of this year. I’ve found that it’s so hard for me to write longer forms. Most of the time when I sit down to try and work on the novel a different tooth, a short story, pops up. Maybe I should just accept this facet of my dental makeup.

Can you tell us about anything about the focus of your upcoming novels and your novella?

One novella will be in the Dzanc collection–I Can Make It To California Before It’s Time For Dinner. It’s the first-person POV of a mentally challenged boy who accidentally kills a neighborhood girl and runs away, hitching a ride with a trucker, who turns out to be a real piece of work. I also just finished a novella about a thirty-something woman who has an affair with a woman in her late sixties. Both novellas are very sparse, clean, and I’m proud of the direction my writing went with them.

The novel I’m working on is about a girl who meets a man from late grandfather’s regiment in WWII. During the battle of Hurrgen Forest, her grandfather fed the man an old Polish herb of immortality, attempting to save him after a mortar explodes his leg. Of course, the grandfather doesn’t believe the herb, passed onto him by his mother, is real and leaves the guy for dead. But the herb suspends and regenerates the soldier’s life. The solider finds his way home after the war, is suspended at 21 forever, and doesn’t know why. His wife dies, his friends. His children are old. He figures it has something to do with the herb and leaves his life behind, becomes a wanderer. He eventually finds the granddaughter, who still has some of the herb from her grandfather’s things but has no idea of its powers, either. And then stuff happens from there. It’s very much a novel about loneliness, though.

The Fictionaut Five is our ongoing series of interviews with Fictionaut authors. Every Wednesday, Meg Pokrass asks a writer five (or more) questions. Meg is an editor at Smokelong Quarterly, and her stories and poems have been published widely. She blogs at http://megpokrass.com.

As most of the weekend was spent digging the office (read: house) out of the recent Mid-Atlantic snowstorm, here’s a hyper-condensed digest for this week:

News possibly trumping the recent iPad announcement: The Baffler is back.

Sam Lipsyte—author of one of the most anticipated books of 2010—is up this week on FiveChapters with “A New Start.”

Chicago’s newest magazine, Artifice, has just published their first issue.

Timothy McSweeney has died.

Bookforum looks into the future of the magazine.

Robert Birnbaum reviews a new book of poetry by the incomparable Marie Ponsot on The Morning News, which includes the full-text of two of her poems.

In case you haven’t noticed, the line-up at the Conjunctions audio vault is amazing: Philip Roth, Peter Carey, Kelly Link, Robert Coover, Steve Erickson, Lydia Davis, and on and on.

The Independent applauds the literary influence of Ireland’s The Stinging Fly.

Lumberyard magazine chooses former meatpacker and coffee roaster Nikolas A. Butler for their inaugural Roark Prize.

One of the most influential magazines in contemporary poetry, Fence magazine, is looking for a new poetry editor.

Finally, Electric Literature 3 is out. Here’s an intriguing excerpt from “Little Things” by Matt Sumell:

I folded my arms. They felt big, capable of anything. Lifting, carrying, digging, feeding cows PCP so they revolt with unexpected and tremendous violence—anything. Wrapping gifts in tissue paper and busting teeth out of Christian heads. Pumping bicycle tires, pumping gas, pumping iron, bagging my own groceries and skipping boulders across the Long Island Sound all the way to Connecticut. Cracking eggs with one hand and folding laundry. Pushing my Mexican neighbor’s broke-down car across the street Thursday mornings to avoid street sweeping tickets and tossing my cell phone to a friend who needs to make an important call to his mom. Opening every jar for every lady. Helping. I felt like helping. I felt like I could help.

Every Tuesday, Travis Kurowski presents Luna Digest, a selection of news from the world of literary magazines. Travis is the editor of Luna Park, a magazine founded on the idea that journals are as deserving of critical attention as other artistic works.

On Ben Chadwick‘s “True Love and the Giraffe”
by Tara Laskowski

“In the known history of Tallahassee, nobody had ever been killed by a rhinoceros, and that was going to change.”

I’ll admit I’m an impatient reader these days. I’m looking for stories to delight me with their language, even more so than the story itself. I want each sentence to be like eating popcorn–every kernel a delight to ingest, so you want to keep going to the end. This is why I like Ben Chadwick‘s “True Love and the Giraffe” so much. It’s surprising, it’s fun, it has good humor and is really smart. Though I didn’t know what was going on at every moment, I liked that because I felt like the narrator was driving with confidence, and I was willing to go along with the ride.

I know that the story is a little longer than most pieces posted on Fictionaut, and therefore probably gets less readers because of it. However, it’s worth taking the time for. The situation itself is crazy, and it just keeps getting more and more insane with each twist of the plot. Ben is not afraid to take risks with his plot, and we as readers benefit from it. Good stuff!

On Ajay Nair‘s “Bicycle Boys”
by H-M Brown

“Bicycle Boys” is a Horror/Science Fiction Short-Story that follows the mysterious sightings of a group of boys riding bicycles in Bombay, India, that people are unsure of are actually there. The sightings of the titular characters, creates tension with the residents of Bombay during an intense heatwave in the summer. The suspense paces very well, building up moments of mystery and intrigue, with a climax that is both shocking and well executed.

On Jeanne Holtzmann‘s “Better Than Chocolate“
by David Erlewine

The first story I faved on this site was “Better Than Chocolate” by the wonderful Jeanne Holtzmann. This story was posted on Fictionaut earlier this year, when Jeannie learned that Night Train was going to be publishing it. I faved it for about 40 reasons, and I’ll get into a couple. The narrator works at a grocery store and is asked (and goes) to visit a co-worker while he’s working his second job as a night watchman. The guy is described thusly: “His dad owns a junkyard. My friends think he’s mean and scary, but they’re a bunch of wusses, and besides, they don’t see him the way I do.” Look how she sets the stage during the narrator’s drive out to see the guy: “Dead leaves blow across the narrow, crumbling pavement like animals running for their lives.” And when the guy sees the narrator, look how Jeannie describes it: “‘You came,’ he says. He smells of weed and beer. He peers out between the diamonds with those eyes, sad and cynical, the color of chocolate and shit.”

I won’t get into any more laudatory phrases or give away the ending, which to me is the kind of heartbreaking I can’t get enough of, the kind that doesn’t try too hard, the kind that smacks you around each time you read it. I love this story and would fave it again if I could.

Fictionaut Faves, a series in which Fictionaut members recommend stories on the site, is edited by Marcelle Heath, a fiction writer, freelance editor, and assistant editor for Luna Park. She lives in Portland, Oregon.

I like Josh, he is my kind of dude and reminds me what it was like to live in a diy house with 10 roommates.

Q (Nicolle Elizabeth for Fictionaut): The first rule about Deckfight is that you do not talk about Deckfight. Break the rule, Tyler Durden. Who is Deckfight?

(Josh Spilker) Sleeper cell of real estate industry spies who watch the comings and goings of the baby boomer set to predict when and where they will move and inhabit next. Buy North Carolina and sell Florida with a close eye on the Del Webb communities of Middle Tennessee. All of this or none of this is true.

We’ve also been known to write and comment about music and literature with a southeast bent. Not everything we cover is in those bounds, but those bounds are what we are most interested in.

How long has Deckfight been going?

“Deck” and “Fight” have been in my mind a long time never finding a connection together until I created a horrible WordPress site to showcase random music videos. That sucked. I never knew I would like blogging until about 10 months ago, when I just decided, “Forget it, let’s start posting stuff on a regular basis and see what’ll happen.” Blogging (to me) is about a rhythm & flow, and I feel like I finally got that down. And I like music and literature, pretty equally.

I’m not sure what has happened. I wouldn’t say Deckfight is a success or failure, but I generally like it and some nice authors and music-types have been nice enough to respond to my emails. And a few people here and there have decided to help me with it. I get a lot of random press releases, some good, some not—that has happened.

How if at all does Deckfight bring in its indie rock interests to the Deckfight Fictionaut group?

To the Fictionaut group? I’m not sure yet. That’s something I need to look into. In general, I will say that I love literature about rock & roll. Love Joe Meno. Before I started Deckfight, Ben Tanzer and I had some random emails concerning the punk rock mag, Wonkavision,when we were both contributing to it. The new Tao Lin is underrated in its punk rock-i-ness. I like Jason at Orange Alert and David w/ Largehearted b/c we combine the lit & rock.

Also, I think fiction can learn a lot from the DIY indie-punk aesthetic. I’m a big fan of thinking of short stories as mp3s. Chapbooks as EPs. Books as albums. There was a conversation on the Pank blog and HTML Giant about how in music DIY and essentially “self-publishing” is ok, but in literature it’s not. And the argument is that self-published/vanity press is all rubbish with no filter. Well, there’s a lot of trash in self-released music as well. The difference is that the bands throw it out there, find a community for it and then move forward, move on or try something different.

That’s where I think something like Fictionaut can help out. It’s a huge community to post a few stories (play a few songs) and see how the crowd responds. If people support it, but a big publisher (label) doesn’t, it still might be worth putting it out there, then eventually getting some bigger attention. The lit world seems quick to condemn the very idea of self-publishing, when it may be the way to go for some authors at a certain moment in time. I guess the small/indie publishers do foster a similar spirit, but I think there’s room for the self-released, the indie press & the big press–just like in music.

Also, I’ve just started posting short story links on Wednesdays…so hook me up.

How’s the group going? Do you guys watch MTV UK together?

That’d be awesome, but I don’t have cable, only Netflix streaming. So I can rock the A-Team television series, but that’s about it. BTW–do they show Jersey Shore in the UK? What’s the response? Once I was in Belize and I went into this little village shack of a general store that somehow had a cable hook-up and they were watching “The Hills,” some episode with a yacht. The juxtaposition almost made me puke.

I’m still trying to figure out how Fictionaut works, with its bells and whistles, we should all send more stories to groups I think, instead of just posting in the great gust of stories on the main page. We’d probably receive some better feedback that way. This prompt has prompted me to change things for the better. If not me then who? If not now, then when?

Tell me anything else here. Write like a book and I’ll break it up to look cool.

Think we’re going to expand our brand into local aquariums and fish hatcheries with an anthology of Deckfight’s first year. “A Best Of” or “Greatest Hits” if you will, and I know you will. Think we’re going to rock it PDF and ePub style with maybe a couple physicality copies for our moms to wad up and throw into bonfires.

Maybe I’ll self-publish a chapbook, maybe I won’t. But for sure, I’ve got a story coming out soon through the Twitter fiction project of the CCLaP center that everyone should check out.

What will all the fishies think about this? We will have to ask them.

And I’m always interested to know what authors have been reading lately for our Friday Five piece and whatever else, so send some stuff my way: deckfight@gmail.com.

Nicolle Elizabeth checks in with Fictionaut Groups every Friday.